Enel, through its renewables subsidiary Enel Green Power Germany (EGP Germany), has signed an agreement with German wind energy company ENERTRAG AG and Swiss energy storage solutions company Leclanché to build and manage a 22 MW lithium-ion battery storage plant in Cremzow, in the German state of Brandenburg. The project is Enel’s first storage plant in Germany and its construction will involve an investment of around 17 million euros. The storage plant will provide frequency regulation services to Germany’s Primary Control Reserve (PCR) market to rapidly stabilise the grid, and will later be integrated with Enertrag wind farms. The first 2 MW section of the Cremzow plant is expected to be operational in April 2018, while the launch of the entire plant is planned for the end of this year.
The facility will be owned by a special purpose vehicle (SPV) in which EGP Germany has a 90% majority stake and ENERTRAG the remaining 10% stake. Leclanché will act as engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contractor for the project, in charge of integrating battery and power conversion systems and energy management software. The project will provide the grid with a real-time primary frequency regulation service contributing to its stability. When the grid’s frequency decreases due to high power demand, the battery will rapidly deliver its stored energy, while in response to frequency increases due to low demand, the battery is charged with the surplus energy. Furthermore, the integration with ENERTRAG wind farms will allow for the use of surplus energy produced by the facilities to charge the battery, cutting back on the need to curtail wind power generation when it is higher than demand on the grid.
Based in Yverdon-les-Bains in Switzerland Leclanché SA designs, develops, manufactures, and sells customized energy storage solutions for electricity generation and transmission, mass transportation, heavy industrial machines, and specialty battery systems in Switzerland, Portugal. (Source: Leclanché)